The Mirror of Desire
by Kate1221
Summary: Hermione looks into the Mirror of Erised, but what she sees isn't at all what she expected.


The castle was eerily cold that night, and she pulled her cloak tighter around herself, silently condemning her actions.

'Madness, absolute madness,' she muttered to herself, turning yet another corner. 'You should be ashamed of yourself, Hermione Weasley, creeping out of bed in the middle of the night and chasing after fairytales. That thing has nothing to show you that you don't already know.' Yet the words sounded hollow, and they did nothing to dissolve the tight knot in her chest as she sneaked through the castle. She fled past open doorways, hastened to distance herself from seemingly asleep portraits and expertly dashed around Mrs. Norris. She finally stole into an empty corridor on the fourth floor and reached her destination. As she reached out to push open the dark-wooden door, she still felt conflicted. Part of her wanted to turn around and run back to bed, back to her safe haven. Part of her wanted nothing more than to finally find the answer to the question that had been burning inside her for so long.

She fluttered into the room and softly closed the door behind her. It took her but one glance to confirm what she already knew – the mirror was here. She slid the cloak off her shoulders and crept towards the mirror, careful not to stand directly in front of it. The thing was old and dusty, and yet it possessed a certain disturbing charm, a dangerous beauty. She craned her neck to look at the neat inscription around the top of the mirror.

_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi._

She felt her heart speed up as she edged closer to the tall frame. This was it. Tonight she would finally see her heart's desire.

She hesitated for a split second – what if the mirror didn't show her what she expected? What if she'd made the wrong decision after all? Then the moment was gone and she stepped in front of the mirror.

Her breath caught in her throat as she gazed at the reflection.

'No,' she whispered, stepping away from the mirror. 'It can't be. It can't be.' She began taking bigger steps away from the mirror. 'You lie! Show me my true desire!'

But the mirror didn't budge. The image remained the same. She felt anger welling up inside her. Anger and something more. Fear clawed around her heart as she stared at the mirror, unable to look away.

'You lie!' she repeated, louder. 'You lie – and I will show you what I think of liars!' She pulled her wand out of her robes and pointed it at the seemingly innocent reflection.

'Bombarda!' The spell easily left her lips and she watched as the red light sped away from her, towards the mirror. It impacted on the glass surface – and nothing happened. The red ray simply disappeared into the mirror. Furious, she began a frantic search for weapons. Finding nothing better than a dirty crystall ball, she seized it and threw it as hard as she could. There was a loud bang as the crystall ball exploded into a million tiny shards. The mirror looked unaffected.

She strode towards it, not aware of the crunching of glass beneath her feet. She halted just in front of the mirror, close enough to see that the surface was still smooth and impeccable. Whereas the crystall ball had shattered, the mirror didn't even have a scratch. She slammed her fist against the glass and a sharp pain shot through her hand.

'You lie,' she repeated, staring at her own dishevelled reflection. 'You lie.'

The Harry in the mirror merely smiled and pressed his hand against the glass surface.

* * *

AN: In case it is unclear: Hermione is afraid because she sees Harry in the mirror, instead of Ron, the person she thought she was in love with.

I can't help but feel the quality of this piece is rather meh, but it's 2 AM and I just wanted to get this out. So.

Also, I'm not entirely confident Bombarda appears in the books (and I'm not at all certain it's red), but it appeared in the PoA movie, and as I was lazy I decided to just go with it. Don't hate me, please. : D


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